Crisis: bankruptcies hit north, rise in Campania and Lazio

Milan suffers, industry in trouble, small regions hold up

(ANSAmed) - MILAN, APRIL 9 - Lombardy and Milan and the whole
of the North West is suffering, along with the Veneto too.

Cerved's snapshot of bankruptcies is not a pretty sight, because
it affects much of the productive heart of Italy. The crisis,
especially since last year, has arrived in Campania and Lazio,
where company failures exploded in 2011 by respectively 30 and
23%.

According to figures from the credit risk business analysis
and assessment group examined by ANSA, since 2009 - the year in
which the bankruptcies exploded with the global crisis - 17
thousand northern companies have crashed, with the Western Area
(Lombardy and especially Milan then Piedmont and Liguria) in
obvious difficulty, while the North East is holding up better,
although the Veneto is struggling a lot. A quarter of business
closures have been in the South (8358), and 22% in Central
Italy, with 7,284 bankruptcies. A study on the frequency of
failures, that is the number of closed businesses for every 10
thousand active ones (Insolvency ratio, IR), confirms the
figures. Since the start of the crisis Lombardy has been top
with a rate of over 27 companies that have ceased their
activities for every 10 thousand businesses open. Milan is first
among the provinces with an Insolvency Ratio of 34. Nearly half
of the total 33 thousand bankruptcies (over 15 thousand) have
involved service sector companies, 23% construction (7535), 21%
manufacturing (less than 7 thousand). But, comparing wind up
procedures with the number of operating companies, it is clear
that bankruptcies have hit industry hardest (which an Insolvency
Ratio over the three years of 38.7) and construction (28.5),
compared to services (IR 16.9) and other sectors (9.1). And the
problem appears to be growing: Only last year the Insolvency
Ratio hit 30.7 points in Lombardy and 39 in Milan.

However, in 2011 the trend was worse in two other regions:
Lombardy stayed topt for the highest number of bankruptcies
(2673, +9.8%), but they rose in Campania last year by almost 30%
(29.6% to be precise, with over a thousand companies closed),
and 23.4% in Lazio, with a total of 1,253 bankrupt businesses.

The Veneto was also hard hit. Where once it was said there was a
business for every inhabitant, the region is now second since
the start of the crisis for the total number of closed
businesses, (3225) after Lombardy (over 7 thousand) and closely
followed by Lazio (3151). (ANSAmed).